Laser in Sydney

[Jay Arr]

Coming into Sydney last night (Sunday June 17th) we had a laser aimed in our direction. About 12nm west of the field, while approaching BOOGI on the RIVET 8. Was on the left side of the aircraft, somewhere around Liverpool. Green in colour. Luckily it didn't strike us directly. Reported it to ATC and appropriate paperwork submitted.

Anyone else operating into SY or BK encountered this hero around that location? I've scanned the NOTAMS since and nothing.... yet.

Please be cautious out there. Goes without saying: if you see it - look away and call it in.

[man on the ground]

As Jay Arr, said, report it when you see them, but theres nothing that can be notam'd. There events are happening all over country and from various places within each city. The most acurate ground location you can provide helps, as the local police are notfied straight away, hopefully to catch the clowns in the act, but at least the visible presence makes them quit for the night. The feds get told as well. One day one these idiots will get caught, and prosecuted with a number of charges he wasn't expecting, and strung up as an example to the others.

[squawk6969]

public stonings would be appropriate!

castrations too if need be

So how do you see these events?

Unless you have been there how do you know?

SQ

[brown_hornet]

Happened in Perth a month or two ago aswell. Not directly to us, the aircraft immediately behind us reported after landing that on a 5 mile final rwy 21 a green beam was aimed in their direction........I think when caught, these tossers should be tied up and forced to look into their own beam, see if they get the picture then:mad:

[BrazDriver]

I have had it coming out of PH. Except is was powerful searchlights just as you get airborne. Pop over the trees and they have you locked until you turn to the east. ATC didn't seem too interested. Was able to give them a pretty good fix on them too!

[Mud Skipper]

Perhaps for all the fuss made over high vis vests, wearing the correct colour ear plugs, where you leave your bags - tripping hazard, could we be issued with something to counter this threat.

Oh! Laser safe glasses are too expensive I hear you say, surprise me.
So the only piece of protective gear I really want I'll have to supply myself.

[*Lancer*]

What are these 'green' lasers used for? The only ones I'm familiar with are the little red ones... and half of them aren't real lasers anyway.

[Transition Layer]

Also had it out of Sydney about a month ago.

Departing off 34L during the left turn towards RIC it came from about the North Sydney area. None of us noticed it on the flight deck but the cabin crew down the right hand side of the aircraft all saw it.

Reported it to ATC also but likewise nothing seen in the NOTAMs.

[Bug Smasher Smasher]

I got zapped turning onto the 01 LLZ at GLENN in BNE one evening several months ago. It came from a suburb just to the south of GLENN.

There was a NOTAM (or possibly a company INTAM) out at the time but has long since been removed (why???) warning us of the threat at ports around the country and instructing us to advise ATC with as much detail as possible. This was done and an ASIR was completed. ATC certainly took it seriously and we were assured by ATC and the company that local and federal police were taking it seriously too.

It was extremely distracting and I certainly hope they manage to catch these :mad:heads but I acknowledge that's going to be pretty much impossible. They're probably just kids in their backyard and trying to get an accurate fix on their location, for the cops, as you're whizzing by half blind at 200kts is not an easy task.

A little media attention highlighting the danger and punishement for endangering the safety of air navigation is probably warranted. :suspect:

[Scorpio69]

The police are onto this sort of behavior.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Man shone laser at police chopper, court told

A man from Ottoway has appeared in Port Adelaide Magistrates Court charged with shining a laser at a police helicopter last night.
Adelaide police allege that Lanfranco Baldetti, 22, was in a car on Grand Junction Road at about 9.00 pm (ACST) when he distracted the helicopter pilot with a bright green light.
The court heard that the helicopter was on a routine flight and had to switch operating modes because of the distraction.
Police say when they arrested Baldetti at a service station they found a loaded rifle fitted with a silencer on the back seat of his car.
Baldetti is charged with impeding an aircraft and with firearms offences.
He has been refused bail and will return to court next week.

[Metro man]

Had it happen going into BNE RW14, green laser from somewhere in the Redcliff area. Lit up the whole cockpit, luckily I wasn't looking in that direction and had another pilot with me. Hopefully someone will get caught and recieve a prison sentence :yuk:

[tobzalp]

The green ones are generally builders level devices from laying slabs or tiles around a wall or what ever. Generally even though you could be called snooty, these things shine up from suburbs that you would expect.

[Field plougher]

Suburbs you'd expect.... from transition layers thread, experienced one from the North Sydney area.
How times have changed when North Sydney has become "one of those suburbs":ugh:

[Like This - Do That]

Amateur astronomers use them for pointing out objects in the night sky. The green laser picks up moisture in the air and make better pointers than do the red ones.

The little $50 ones throw an impressive beam but apparently are not a risk to eyesight.... I'm not 100% certain on that, it's just what I've been told.

That's probably no consolation, and I'm not attempting to defend the indefensible. I should point out that I neither own one myself nor am I an amateur astronomer :8

[Atlas Shrugged]

How times have changed when North Sydney has become "one of those suburbs"

I suppose they have, especially to those living in Darling Point! ;)

[Icarus53]

I got it twice last week - once on final for 16R (YSSY) and again coming in from the West a few days later??? Does any action actually get taken against these people??? In the bigger scheme of things this is fairly low risk (anything below a Class 3B laser will not have a significant, lasting effect - most pointers are 3A or lower and cannot cause permanent damage before the blinking mechanism protects the eye), but all it takes is for it to happen just when other problems are stacking up (perhaps for a single pilot?) and disaster looms!:mad:

If this is idiots out for a hoot, bring back public floggings! If it's amateur astronomers or anyone else, I don't think it takes a degree in astrophysics to understand that shining bright lights up into a major flight path might not be in the public interest.

[SmallGlassofPort]

Those Green lasers can be used for other things as well. I have one that is meant to be fitted to a rifle.......
The laser came cheap from HK but it lights up the target Km's away and the instruction manual warns of eye danger bt not just for close range. Just becase it is green doesnt make it any safer, we never know whats on the end of that light...:ugh:

[Orographic]

In terms of eye damage, frequency ( colour) doesn't realy change much ( incuding those frequencies that are outside human visual spectra), what matters is what wattage is being emitted from the ( usualy ) diode.
and even the 0.005 mW diodes on "novilty" laser pointers can do huge amounts of damage, as I can testify myself.:\

Yes they are useful and nifty, if used safely, but seriously, how many twits out there think its a bit of fun to 'tag' someone with it * sigh*

[cessnaman172]

I have also had a very similar incident to those above..

Was on approach to RWY 16R at SY, P.N.F. An extremely bright light was shon directly into the cockpit at approximately 4.8 DME. from the right side of the aircraft (from a WSW direction). I looked out to see what it was (not expecting it to be a laser), and the f@#$wits on the ground shon it into the cockpit a second time, at around 4.6 DME, this time getting me fair and square in the right eye. As part of the readback to the landing clearance I reported the incident to the tower controller. After landing, the ground controller asked me a few questions (distance, direction it came from etc..). My captain also submitted an incident report with the distances and direction that the laser came from.

These idiots shoud be well and truly punished. If I was flying a smaller single pilot aircraft that night, the results might have been disastrous. My vision had been affected for around 3 hours after the incident - I was seeing stars and had slightly blurred vision. When the cops catch up with these idiots, they should make an example out of them!:mad:

[RYAN TCAD]

Yes i saw this green laser being shone from what appeared to be North Head one night round mid June.

I look across to that area from where i live.

Hmmm - i wonder if this makes me snooty!

[havick]

"how hard is to to get friggin sharks with friggin laser beams attached to their heads?"

could be dr evil causing all this trouble.

[Blip]

We were approaching Glenfield (for runway 07 in Sydney) one night when we were told that the aircraft in front of us reported a laser being pointed at them at about 6 nm from the runway.

I decieded to turn all the exterior lights off (landing lights, navigation lights, anti-collision lights, and strobe lights). I called the cabin and asked them to turn the cabin lights right down too ( I didn't explain to them why though).
I told Approach that we had turned our lights off and asked them to pass on this information to the tower.

I figured the risk of someone pointing a laser at us was a far greater threat to us than what turning the exterior lights out would have been in regards to an increased risk of mid-air collision (which was nil really). Remember we were radar identified and in controlled airspace. Even the people in the tower would have had us on their screen.

I figured that turning the lights out would make us a much harder target to find. We turned all the lights on again at about 800 ft.

And no, we were not targeted by any laser.

[Frink]

Unrelated to the original topic, sorry, but I'd recommend that you don't do that again, Blip, or at least not on 07. If there is going to be a mid-air collision involving an RPT aircraft in SY airspace it will almost undoubtedly occur with a night arrival to RWY 07. When BK TWR go home of an evening (8 or 9pm) and departures from the CTAF are required to depart from the southern side of the circuit, there are FREQUENTLY penetrations into the SY CTR which fly across/around/the wrong way up the 07 LLZ. It is a problem which has been known for years but no-one is willing to tackle so it resides in the too hard basket.